Here, for your convenience, is a new sports thread. Personally, I don't give a shit whether you vote it in or not. Some of us here enjoy talking about sports, and so threads like this exist to spare your sensitive ears. If you don't want it to exist, that's cool- so be it. Just keep in mind that bowl season is almost upon us, as well as the NFL playoffs and a potential end to the NHL lockout. Knowing the guys like I do, the football talk is going to heat up. So, if you're the kind of guy whose heartrate starts to quicken and you reach for your wallet to protect your lunch money when people talk about sports, if you simply don't like sports, if you get envious when people talk about things that you just have no clue about, or if you're Eyegore, vote no.

So is anyone playing Knight of the Old Republic 2 and/or Battle for Middle Earth? I'm having great fun with both games, and they're painfully keeping me from my EQ2 fun! I wish I could somehow play all three at the same time. Anyway, quick mini reviews of KOTOR 2 and BFME follow:

Cliff's Notes Review of KOTOR 2
If you liked KOTOR 1, you'll love KOTOR 2. It starts off about a thousand times better than KOTOR 1 did with Tarsus and you're immediately pulled into the story. The game is relatively easy, so far, on Normal so most of the game is really just playing to uncover more bits of the story. There's some excellent writing as well, especially in the case of this old woman who's with you from almost the beginning of the game. I love the acting of whoever they got to do her voice, and she brings a lot of interesting points up about the nature of good and evil, and the light/dark side of the force and such. Gameplay wise, it's a carbon copy of KOTOR 1, which is fine by me.
There's a lot more room for good vs. evil decisions, and the evil path isn't at all as heavy handed or just silly as it was is KOTOR 1. With influence over your companions added to the mix, along with their own relationships between one another, and you've got a lot of room to play with alignment not only for your character but for all of you party members as well.
If you liked the first one or you're a star wars fan, go buy it. If you like good, story and character driven RPG's, go buy it.

Cliff's Notes Review of BFME
Wow. I've just finished a couple of battles past Isengard and I can say with complete confidence that Helm's Deep is the finest, most fun and tactically demanding battle I've ever fought in a computer game. The blend of typical RTS fare in building up your forces before the armies of Isengard mass and attack combined with the very involved tactical decisions of troop placement and coordination during the attack. You will have to fall back, move batallions around constantly, hold various lines - but the game doesn't force you to do any of it. You don't have key structures or points to hold or anything, you just have to survive and prevent the keep from being taken; how you do it is completely up to you. The battle is difficult, even on Easy - if you want to keep all of your heroes alive. I'm not sure what Boromir is doing there, but he's there.
As for my complaints of having to fight several battles across Rohan in between setpiece battles, forget them. Those battles are key to building up the force that will eventually come in at just the right time in Helm's Deep. There's a counter that ticks down, but every time I've played the map it just ends up to where they're available right when I need them most. Anyway, if you haven't built up a good sized army, haven't upgraded their armor and weapons, and haven't led them to victory so that you have veteran troops - you'll end up seeing Gandalf and Eomer appear with only a handful of inexperienced calvary. Yep, all those battles in Rohan end up meaning something in the end.
The game has a spit-shine polish to it, the battles just feel incredibly cinematic and important, and they've even gotten calvary vs. foot troops down. As did Return of the King get it right by showing the fear in the foot troop Orcs as the Rohirrim charged their lines and completely mowed them down, if you charge at an enemy batallion, you will literally run over them.
Anyway, if you like RTS games - buy it. If you like tactical wargames, buy it. There's really a lot more emphasis on tactics than strategy, and even less emphasis on base building and such. It's just a really superb game.
Some people may gripe that it's not very deep and "made for the masses" - bleh. The game is extremely simple to play, but a great grasp of high level strategy and low level tactical decisions make it difficult to master. There's a lot of depth in its simplicity and, as a result, the game plays out elegantly.

So is anyone playing Knight of the Old Republic 2 and/or Battle for Middle Earth? I'm having great fun with both games, and they're painfully keeping me from my EQ2 fun! I wish I could somehow play all three at the same time. Anyway, quick mini reviews of KOTOR 2 and BFME follow:

I just bought KOTOR 2 off Ebay, so I'll see it in a week.

Actually, the liberalism of the media - as a general thing - IS a major fallacy. What the media is, is a whore. -LP

And to the Ugly mutherfucker in Europe- This is only the second sports thread I have created. I swore off doing so, but did so to piss off Eyegore. The next one will be called "Wham!!!! Sports Takes Away Zimbardo's Virginty!"

"yot's a religious nut that really truly actually believes in a physical heaven with a graybearded man on a throne with an individual master plan for all of us and a Make A Mountain clay kit nearby"- gaggle

Did you see David Wells is signing with the Red Sox? I wonder how Steinbrenner is going to take that.

"yot's a religious nut that really truly actually believes in a physical heaven with a graybearded man on a throne with an individual master plan for all of us and a Make A Mountain clay kit nearby"- gaggle

I'm curious to see if this means they don't think Pedro is coming back. Can you imagine a lineup of Shilling and Pedro as your 1 and 2, with Wells as your 3? I hope you guys take the AL East next year.

"yot's a religious nut that really truly actually believes in a physical heaven with a graybearded man on a throne with an individual master plan for all of us and a Make A Mountain clay kit nearby"- gaggle

Also... Nomar was offered 6 years and $60 million to stay with the Red Sox last year. What did he get as a free agent this off season? 1 year, $8 million, and no ring. As Nelson would so eloquently say, HA HA.

www.dailyhowler.com is the single most important website that Americans should read every day.
"The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had."

I just installed the LOTR RTS game. DVD version, and it didn't complain about the CD-RW drive in the system. Must suck to be you, Jeet. Anyway, I'm gonna fire it up now and play it for about 10 minutes before I go eat dinner.

Still yeah, I blame the crapp DVD-R I have. I got it for free though, so I can't complain too much. It's an external USB job, which is always a problem, and it's an HP so it's doubly annoying. I rarely use the thing anyway, so that takes some of the sting out. The last time I used it was to dump all of my old DOS games onto a DVD that I just mount in Dosbox when I want to play an oldie. Haven't burned anything else in months.

That said, it's fucking ridiculous to force anyone to remove their recording drives from their system before allowing a game to be played. I've since found that Pirates! works without a crack now as well, so it's Securom detecting my DVD-R and balking at me. If it told you why, it'd be one thing, but how many "normal" people out there are going to A.) Figure it out and B.) Do it just to play a game.

I remember when there used to be rules and regulations )or at least principles) guarding the consumer's rights. What happened to those?

In other news, I had one of the worst headaches of my life spring up on my this afternoon. It's mostly faded now, though it's still there somewhat (just woke up after finally getting to sleep with it killing me) and I fear its return.

Oddly enough, the wife has a similar headache yesterday evening when she came home from work. Since I don't think I've ever heard of a headache virus, I have to think it's either the crazy weather we've been having lately (goes from hot to cold, back and forth, in a matter of hours) or something released into the air by one of the chemical plants around here.

The latter isn't too far fetched, since something with them happens every so often. Once, there was something released into the air that I mistook for a heavy pollen on my black car years ago but, upon turning on the radio while I was driving, I learned that it was something released by one of the plants and they were encouraging everyone to rinse off their cars and park them in a garage or at least under a covering, lest the paint get eaten away. Another time, something got released that made everyone outside start coughing and rubbing their eyes before it, quite literally, began eating holes in womens' pantyhose.

And people wonder why the cancer rate is so amazingly high in this area....I really need to move.

Sometimes I wonder if that crazyass lunatic mexican gangmember/teacher combo asshole doesn't have anything better to do than post sports threads.

Joker, Ph.D. Procedural Assholian Behaviour, Pedophilosopher- All your ass are belong to my wang Jafd. Prepare to are penetration.
"I fart in THX." - Sgt_HulkaPENETRATOR: Rise of the Wang Cuming "When it's done".
The American government and its supporters suck cock. See Fahrenheit 9/11 and discover the truth.

Well this just goes to show you how you stupid amerians accept this shit and pretend like nothing happens. Maybe you complain on a messageboard about it, but you never actually do something about it. Before you know it decades go by again.
This also explains why Dubya has his cock up every american's ass at this moment.

Joker, Ph.D. Procedural Assholian Behaviour, Pedophilosopher- All your ass are belong to my wang Jafd. Prepare to are penetration.
"I fart in THX." - Sgt_HulkaPENETRATOR: Rise of the Wang Cuming "When it's done".
The American government and its supporters suck cock. See Fahrenheit 9/11 and discover the truth.

Oh, give it a rest, Joker. You use the same products that get their base material refined right here. The fact is, it doesn't really bother me much. That's life, and if Texas somehow disappeared from reality, the world would be thrown into complete chaos due to the massive amount of refining and chemical processing that's done right here.

So, unless you want to give up your computer and stop posting on message boards, you're a hypocrite just like you claim the rest of us to be. Computers and monitors are chock full of all sorts of nasty base chemicals, not to mention to pollution caused from creating the power to run them and all of the equipment that keeps the net going.

Honestly, unless you're willing to move out to the country and live off the land with no modern amenities, then shut the fuck up. You're either a hypocrite pr are just completely ignorant of how "the system" works. Everything breaks down to its parts, and the infrastructure that you claim to hate so much produces those parts and makes everything you use possible.

Either educate yourself beyond the ramblings of a hoax filled time travelling crackpot or shush up about it already.

I see you are an expert in the ways of "the system". Which makes me wonder why you wrote post #29 if you know so much about it. In your own words : "Honestly, unless you're willing to move out to the country and live off the land with no modern amenities, then shut the fuck up."

Just accept your headache, black dust on your car, your clothes being eaten away by the air where you live, and the lot of dead angel babies which are bound to appear in the future.

Joker, Ph.D. Procedural Assholian Behaviour, Pedophilosopher- All your ass are belong to my wang Jafd. Prepare to are penetration.
"I fart in THX." - Sgt_HulkaPENETRATOR: Rise of the Wang Cuming "When it's done".
The American government and its supporters suck cock. See Fahrenheit 9/11 and discover the truth.

Who's the hypocrite now. hmm?? HMM??? Stupid mick. If you so much as write another word about it I'm going to punch you in the face.

Joker, Ph.D. Procedural Assholian Behaviour, Pedophilosopher- All your ass are belong to my wang Jafd. Prepare to are penetration.
"I fart in THX." - Sgt_HulkaPENETRATOR: Rise of the Wang Cuming "When it's done".
The American government and its supporters suck cock. See Fahrenheit 9/11 and discover the truth.

i like that it's an article about corporate ineptitude; perhaps it's anti-advertising? disney pays for a near-subliminal ad for someone else to run all the way through a negative article. i walked away thinking "fuck'n united. fuck'n golden parachutes..."

I see you are an expert in the ways of "the system". Which makes me wonder why you wrote post #29 if you know so much about it. In your own words : "Honestly, unless you're willing to move out to the country and live off the land with no modern amenities, then shut the fuck up."

Just accept your headache, black dust on your car, your clothes being eaten away by the air where you live, and the lot of dead angel babies which are bound to appear in the future.

Ok, I won't say another word about it. Instead, I'll just quote what I already said about it, in the hopes that you will read and comprehend it this time. Observe:

The fact is, it doesn't really bother me much. That's life...

In the spirit of aiding your comprehension, what the above statement means is I have accepted my headade, the YELLOW (remember how I mistook it for pollen? pollen is not black, He-Who-Is-Clearly-Confused) dust on my car, and since I don't wear pantyhose my clothes weren't eaten away by the air where I live. I also said that this kind of thing happens on occassion, and all three events have taken place over about fifteen years and are the only incidents that I can recall.

The cancer rate IS high here, but here is where I am for now so I accept it. The world needs its refined materials and its chemicals processed. It has to happen somewhere, and while I don't claim to be "an expert" on "the system", I do realize that you don't just make a microwave oven by wiggling your fingers and having one materialize out of thin air. I understand that it is made up of individual components, and I understand that each of those components is further made up of even smaller components, and I realize that the whole lot of it is made through base materials that have had to be refined and processed.

Seriously though, I can see why you cling to the Titor myth so strongly. It gives you a very clear picture of the world and reality, and lends to it enough of a feeling of hopelesness and places the blame squarely on someone else's shoulders that you can feel high and mighty while you do nothing to stop the impending doom yourself. Instead, you continue post boring lectures to people on a computer message board who laugh and don't take a word you say seriously. If you want to lecture other people on "doing something about it" and not "just posting on a message board" - then why don't you stop posting lectures on a message board and start doing something about it?

You see, the reason we are not hypocrites and you are is because we don't believe in the stories told by someone claiming to be a time traveller from the future who came back in time to get an IBM computer from the 70's so he can save the world in his time. While he was here, he decided to chat it up on the primitive information superhighway and post apocolyptic messages because he was bored.

Since we don't believe in the hoax, we are not being hypocritical when we choose not to heed its dire warnings. Since you, however, do believe in the hoax yet choose to not do anything to help stop the predictions from being realized, you are clearly the only hypocrite here.

I'll close with a quick analogy in the interests of clarifying myself just a little bit more in the hope that you'll understand. A person who does not believe in God does not find it blasphemous to take his name in vain or fuck someone else's wife. A person who does believe in God should find these things to be a sin. The difference between the two, as concerns who is the hypocrite and who is not, is that if the non-believer fucks your mother he's not saying or believing in one thing and doing another, whilst if the believer commits the sin without remorse, well....there ya go.

Cliff's Notes Summary Of The Above Bibblebabble
You're a freakin' nutjob, Joker. Is the grass green on your world, or have the evil and filthy Americans already covered it in a lustrous sheen of oil and blood?